DANGER WILL ROBINSON!! SPOILERS AHEAD!! WARNING!!
Title: The Single Synapse Theory
Release Date: April 1995, DC Comics
Writer: Mark Waid
Penciller: Humberto Ramos
Inker: Wayne Faucher
Good Guys: Impulse, Max Mercury, The Flash(in flashbacks)
Bad Guys: An as-of-yet unnamed company or perhaps gov't agency, the other kids at school
So what happens?
The story begins with our hero taking an early morning run around his new town, Manchester, AL. He has just been moved there from Keystone City, the home of the Flash. He is now living with a self-proclaimed "Speed Force Guru" Max Mercury. Max is just trying to teach Bart a little restraint, but Bart is too busy living between seconds to stop and listen. ...And that usually leads to a load of trouble.
While on his run, he happens upon a strange hovercraft-type vehicle. And its moving......fast. Deciding to race the craft, he neglects to notice the giant cruise missile headed right for it. Just as the missile destroys the craft, Impulse realizes it he's late for his first day and heads off to school.
He tries his best to fit in at school, but living life at regular speed just isn't his style. His attempt at being nice and honest just lands him in hot water with his classmates. His teacher mistakes his honesty for sass-mouth and assigns the entire class a paper to write. Conveniently enough, the paper has to be a biography. This leads into a quick catch-up session where Bart tells his origin (see Impulse).
After school, Bart gets home only to have Max lecture him about keeping his secret identity and how he has to learn self-control. When Max asks about what Bart was doing before school, Bart relates that morning's adventure. Max finds the story intriguing. Mainly because he just a newspaper article stating that there is a prototype high-speed hovercraft being developed at a research facility, on the other side of town than where Bart had been.
curiouser and curiouser.....
It seems that someone is trying to develop a hover-tank, an extremely fast hover-tank. Not only that, but someone else is developing an extremely fast missile to destroy extremely fast hover-tanks. Looks like this sleepy little town isn't so pedestrian after all...
Faster than two shakes of a lamb's tail (however fast that is), Impulse if off, scouring the east side of town. This is a prime example of what Wally West has dubbed the Single Synapse Theory. Bart's thoughts jump to deed in one quantum leap, forgoing any reasoning-out or those pesky "second thoughts". Before he knows it, Bart is in the heart of a massive industrial facility. He can't quite tell what they are making there, but as the lights suddenly go out, he realizes he is very not welcome. The darkness doesn't last long, his body is brilliantly illuminated by the piercing red lights of a hundred laser sights....
Will our hero make it out alive?
Is the fastest teen alive fast enough to out run a blizzard of bullets?
Stay tuned for the next episode...
Quotes:
After Bart has completed a school assignment and given it to Max for review:
Bart: I..I worked two weeks on that paper!
Max: You worked an hour. It only seemed like two weeks. Will you just try to live among the humans?
Max expounds his knowledge on the young speedster:
Max: It's peaceful is what it is. With wide-open spaces and a relaxed atmosphere. In other words, it's a prime place to teach you about power... and patience.
Bart: Bite patience!